


No Other Worthy Quest

by MajorEnglishEsquire



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Dreams, Family, First Kiss, Frottage, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Possession, Season/Series 14, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-25
Updated: 2018-10-25
Packaged: 2019-08-07 06:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16402646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MajorEnglishEsquire/pseuds/MajorEnglishEsquire
Summary: “Have you decided?” Jack asks.“Decided?”“If you’re pissed-off at him or if you’re relieved.”Well, no, he hasn’t.





	No Other Worthy Quest

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place after 14.02 Gods and Monsters (and has probably already been killed by spoilers but you don't come to me for reality, right? You come to me for TRUTH.)

He’s alone in the garage for over an hour.  
He’s waiting.

Sam said it would take a while, but it got close enough to the earliest possible ETA and he couldn’t stand it. Just went to the garage and opened the door and paced.

And paced. And paces still.

Jack comes downstairs and peeks in. Slowly comes over to lean against a support beam and watch Castiel, completely unable to stop himself from moving. His hands heavy in his pockets. Sometimes pulling his phone out to check the time as if he didn’t have a perfectly-running internal clock for all time zones and points in the universe.

“You didn’t tell me what Sam said.”

It’s true. Jack’s been more than patient about that.

“Michael’s gone. Dean is alright.”

On the back-pace Cas can see Jack’s expression.

He is displeased.

That’s not enough information – all he knows, now, is that his enemy got away.

Castiel can’t exactly process other information yet, though.

He paces the other way again. Stares out into the morning on the plains.

“Have you decided?” Jack asks.

“Decided?”

“If you’re pissed-off at him or if you’re relieved.”

Well, no, he hasn’t. He only spares an exasperated glance at Jack. Paces back.

It’s quiet for a while.

“Okay,” Jack says, finally.

Turns to head back up into the bunker.

It’s another half hour. Or, just short of that.

But Cas hears the Impala and walks off to the side, making way. Then just stands there. Entirely unmoving, still in the kind of way that only angels and inanimate objects can manage.

He expected the driver’s side. Really, why would he expect anything else?

But Sam’s on that side. Dean’s far off, pressed to the door of the passenger seat. Cas sees Bobby and Mary pull up in the truck behind them.

He waits for Sam to put it in park, then circles to the other side. Sam has to reach over and shake his brother awake.

Castiel doesn’t want to open the door and have Dean fall out. Mostly because he looks like hell and might actually just ragdoll to the floor if he does.

He waits for Dean to sit up and blink around. His hair is... out of sorts. Too neat. He doesn’t look much like himself.

Cas knocks on the window and Dean blinks out at his hand. Then up at him. They move to open the door at the same time, both going for their handles.

The car is off and Sam has come to circle to Dean’s side. He reaches in to help but is waved off a bit.

Dean doesn’t stand, though. He shifts his legs out of the car and looks ill. It’s more to do with the huge jacket he’s wrapped in, though. And the clothes he’s wearing make him look uncomfortable. He’s more pale than usual and out-of-sorts from sleeping so heavily.

Sam doesn’t offer his hand down again. He turns to speak to Bobby.

So Cas offers his own.

Dean takes it and there’s a weakness in his limbs that means he pitches forward too far as soon as he tries to stand and Cas has to correct for it, catching him.

Dean finally looks him in the eyes.

And, no, Cas still can’t decide if he’s pissed or relieved. But there would certainly be no point in throwing a punch.

He huffs and helps Dean stand. Pulls him along and lets Sam come back by to close the car up, himself.

Cas gets his arm around Dean and they walk to the stairs slowly.

“Fuck’s sake,” Dean sighs to look at them. But still walks forward to start moving up each step, slowly.

For once in his infinitely stubborn life, Dean allows Cas to help him, keep pace with him. He takes the support.

The car doors slam behind them and Mary is the first to follow. She waits for them to make it to the top, doesn’t press to move past them.

Cas nods at a chair, where they normally set their bags when they’re packing to leave the bunker on a mission. Dean shakes his head. So Cas just takes him towards the dorms.

Jack appears at the far end of the hall to help Mary and Bobby, but doesn’t come forward. Sam steps past them to move towards his own room, dumps off his bags, and swings back around. He doesn’t take no for an answer this time. Stops them in the hall to help Dean out of the coat and dress jacket, then takes him the rest of the way to his room.

Cas follows.

Sam has him sit on the bed. Dean looks like he could pass out again.

But then he moves so fast it startles them both – he snatches at the sleeve of Sam’s jacket.

The room goes still.

“Hey?” Sam says.

Dean blinks. “I just realized I’m fucking starving.”

Well, he would be.  
Michael would have had no reason to eat.

Sam looks over to Cas like he expects—  
Then thinks better of it, apparently.

Weirdly, Cas feels a little stung by that.

“I’ll, uh. I’ll rustle something up. Okay?”

Dean nods and lets him go.

Sam stops to grab him by the neck. Shakes him gently, a careful mimic of the way they normally handle one another. Dean’s head sways slightly with it.

He looks at his brother with obvious deep concern. Turns to Dean’s dresser before he leaves and digs for something. Comes up with a comb.

Takes the time to straighten Dean by the shoulders, sits him looking up and brushes his hair back the way it ought to be.

Sam combs out his brother’s hair with a critical eye. Looks to both sides him.

Nods.

“Great,” Dean rolls his eyes. “Now go shave, you friggin’ slob.”

Sam pats Dean’s face, finally smiling. “Sure, jerk. I’ll find food.”

He tosses the comb to the desk and nods at Cas subtly, asking him to stay.

Another zing of annoyance, but Cas nods.

He knows how to pick out food. He could have done that job.

And he knows Dean shouldn’t be left alone, too. It’s an—

Oh.

Sam saw Castiel’s face. Just like Jack – and Cas, himself – he can’t tell if Cas is gonna choose to be angry or relieved, yet. It wasn’t about his ability to choose food for his friend. Or, alternatively, an assumption that he’d leave Dean sitting there without assistance.

Dean leans forward on his knees. He looks.

Yes. He looks drained. Run into the ground.

Archangel vessels rarely survive in any active capacity. It’s amazing that Dean’s even aware of his surroundings, let alone (mostly) able to use his own feet to carry himself.

He turns to look up at Cas.

He’s a little perceptive, now that he’s taken a moment to wake up. And he seems to read the conflict in Cas’s expression, too.

Only it doesn’t seem to make him unsure. It seems to make him sure and make him wary.

Cas doesn’t know what would do that. He tries to soften his expression. This is his friend, after all. His family. He lived and he’s free and that’s wonderful.

But when Dean looks up and says, “Cas?” it sounds so much like when they were in the cave. Like when he had Dean kneeling and Naomi’s programming was telling him to beat Dean to death. Like when he had Dean’s life in his grasp, ready to extinguish, and he begged for Cas to see him. To _see him_ and hear him.

Cas shuts the door.

He can see that this makes Dean’s eyes widen. Makes him more concerned.

To remedy that, Cas moves to crouch in front of him. To be on his own knees with Dean above him and grasps both his wrists.

They stare. Because Cas has access to all the words there are but none to adequately express how sad he’s been, under his show of persistence.

Preaching to Jack and Nick and the others that everything would be resolved. That there would always be family there to pick up the pieces, cobble them together, and snatch up a victory using whatever weapons they had on hand.

But the whole time - _the entire time_ Cas has only been trying not to mourn.

Because he actually, _sincerely_ did not believe they’d really get Dean back, this time.

Dean sees whatever this resolves into in Castiel’s expression. Instantly pitches forward in relief and weakness and Cas lets him land in his arms. Catches and holds him.

Holds him.

Helps mess up his hair further. Pushes him back to help unbutton this stiff, starched shirt and helps him back up onto the bed to sit.

He shrugs out of the shirt with Cas’s help. Dean sighs relief and nods to the dresser.

Cas picks out some things. His favorite things. The softest things Dean has and Dean laughs a little when he brings them to the bed.

Dean hauls him down to sit with him and lets him stay while he changes. Grunts loud and steps into his jeans just to collapse, instantly, back on the bed.

Cas steadies him with a hand and shakes out an overshirt for him have after carefully stretching into a t-shirt.

Dean takes it and puts it on and then crashes his head into Cas’s shoulder.

“I am fucking fed up with you,” Cas says for no reason.

“I’ll never do it again.”

“You’ll never do it again?”

Dean sighs. “Swear.”

Cas rolls his eyes and looks down at him. “You do everything you’re not supposed to. You do _everything_ you say you won’t do.”

“Ugh.” Dean just hugs Cas’s arm to himself. Settles in as if he could sleep where he’s sitting.

“I think I’m supposed to take you to the kitchen,” Cas mentions.

“Oh god,” Dean laughs a little desperately.

He reaches over and touches Dean’s head with two fingers.

In another unexpectedly fast move, Dean bats him away and sits up.

“Sorry,” Cas holds both hands up. Really, he understands exactly what he did there.

This isn’t like the other times when Dean hasn’t wanted Cas to fix him.

This is about angel magic. He doesn’t want that. Not _that_.

“Maybe later?” Cas offers.

Dean looks exhausted. “Maybe later.”

“Maybe... while you’re sleeping? So you don’t-”

“Maybe later,” Dean repeats. That’s all he’ll give to him.

Cas nods.

He watches Dean take a deep breath and shake his head. Move to stand up.

He doesn’t get very far.

Cas stands to help him. Gets an arm around him again and keeps him standing when he does finally heft to his feet.

“This is gonna get old,” Dean admits.

“Not for me,” Cas accidentally says.

Dean bursts another laugh. “I meant for Sam. For everybody else trying to slow up to let me get on the ride.”

“Oh. Um. Well,-”

“Yeah, oh, well,” Dean nods, secures his arm around Cas’s shoulders a little more. “Life goes on.”

“You will _always_ have me,” Cas feels like insisting.

“Yeah, I noticed,” Dean half-smiles.

«»

When Cas feels like sitting at the table with him, opening his bottle of water for him, grabbing the pepper shaker for him, he just does. He just goes with that feeling.

And every time, it’s right. It’s what Dean needs.

So.

He’s just gonna do what Dean needs for a while, regardless of the looks Sam is sending him or the confused way Mary assesses him.

Jack comes to get a soda out of the fridge and sits down at the table with them.

Bobby comes, soon enough. Along with a few of the other stragglers who are back from hunts.

Sam was settled to lean at the counter and he knows that Sam is seeing the same thing he is.

Cas glares at him. He cannot _actually_ be ready to entertain this bullshit yet.

“So?” Bobby demands with one word, looming over the proceedings.

Dean just eats the tv dinner that Sam warmed up for him.

Cas doesn’t stare down any of the people surrounding them, quite yet, but he does shoot Mary a look of warning.

She nods, just enough.

“We had intel from a vamp about Michael doing experiments on her nest,” Sam starts, giving everyone an intro.

“I was there,” Bobby cuts him off, turns to give Sam the stink-eye. “I was _attempting_ to prompt your brother, here, for some info we don’t already know.”

“Yeah. But he doesn’t know shit. We talked in the car.”

“He passed out in the car,” Bobby counters. “You don’t know what he knows.”

“I told him everything I could remember,” Dean says, forking the peas out of the vegetable medley portion of his dish and scraping them off on a napkin like they were disgusting and not actual food.

“And he couldn’t remember much from the experiments,” Sam fills in. “He was under, most the time. Mike had him gagged – he only surfaced twice and he was dragged back down. Dean doesn’t know what we’re looking for or why Michael left him alone.”

“Or why he let Dean live?” Jack pipes up.

Cas hears something dangerous in him, in that moment.

Jack casts a critical eye on Dean and Castiel knows that Jack is trying to filter out all the human things. Trying to utilize what is left of his grace to see inside of Dean.

He can try.  
He won’t be able to see.

Cas can see clearly. He always could. Always will.

Not only is he currently stronger than Jack, he’s incredibly knowledgeable about the subject of his scrutiny. He would know what to look for better than any other angel.

“You’re assuming Michael is simply dormant in him and your take on the situation is that he should be strapped down in the dungeon,” Cas guesses.

Guesses correctly, as Jack narrows his eyes at him.

“What about it, Castiel?” Mary asks. “Do we have anything to worry about from him?”

Unlike with Nick, he doesn’t have to press a hand to Dean or intrude on him at any level to get an accurate read.

He is familiar with every atom of Dean’s body and every wisp of his soul. If anything were still invading him, Cas would know just by looking at him.

“From him? No. About him, on the other hand?” he turns his eyes to Bobby. “Your interrogation will have to wait. Lucifer left Nick with such significant psychic scarring that I’m not entirely sure he knows who he is anymore. He had to be _reminded_ of the circumstances of his possession and his life before Lucifer’s rise. You’ve given him time to recover while Dean found you just six hours ago and has had no time whatsoever to heal. I have to be sure about the damage done to him and, frankly, I’m not even going to allow Sam to question him until he can so much as stand on his own power.”

Bobby’s eyes are narrowed in doubt and distrust, just like Jack.

The others, Mary included, look to Sam. To see if he accepts the answer.

Beside him, Dean looks to the various faces in the room, all turned towards his little brother, all waiting on his reaction.

Cas sees Sam nod in acceptance. He turns away while Sam explains, taking the water and pressing it to Dean’s hand until he takes a drink.

“Yeah, we’re gonna give this a minute, guys,” Sam declares. “We’ve got a bead on what Michael wants, even if we don’t have the specifics. He’s messing with vampires – we just tangled with some that didn’t have the usual weaknesses. He’s helping pump them up somehow and that creates a problem for everyone. He doesn’t need an army of angels at his back if he has a batch of supervamps that can rapidly multiply and start wiping out humanity one town at a time. Vampires are always in border disputes with werewolves, too, right? So I say we either have to alert some wolves to get them on the offensive early, or we have to start searching for the same signs of experimentation in the different underground species. Either way, we’ve got enough work on our plate.”

The room murmurs with interest and agreement.

Sam catches Cas’s eye before he says the next bit. Just so he knows where he’s going with this and can head Dean’s reaction off or temper it.

“Dean’s got nothing. He’s too weak right now. And we can’t wait for him to catch up,” Sam feigns flippancy well. It manages to draw most the focus away from Dean. “What we need is to get a move on. Cas can work on dragging out his memories, later, but the danger we’re facing right now is pretty damn clear. I want everyone’s blades sharpened. You’ll carry a machete at all times. We’ll buy some back-ups. I want the phone-tree started. And get online. We contact every hunter we can find and warn them that vamps might not be susceptible to silver or dead-man’s-blood anymore. We warn _everyone_.” He nods, stands straight, and starts ushering people out of the room in pairs with separate assignments.

Bobby leaves on his own, uninterested in taking orders.

Mary shoots Sam a look and heads out after him.

At the table, Jack is still trying to look through Dean.

And it’s about to start pissing Cas off.

Sam snags Jack, though, and pulls him out to do some research.

“I’m benched,” Dean says through a full mouth, forlorn.

“Fake benched,” Cas promises. “They’ve been looking to Sam as an authority. Once he’s gotten the others busy with assignments, we’ll be able to work our own way.”

Dean looks over his shoulder, to the hall. “You don’t know that Mike didn’t leave a fucking time-bomb in me. What the hell am I gonna do? I could be putting everyone in the line of fire, Cas.”

He snorts, rolls his eyes. Offers his hand.

Dean stares at it. “What?”

“I won’t force it on you. But if you want me to look then I’d need to...?” he doesn’t finish. Only sits. Dean knows how this works. If he isn’t ready for angel magic, it won’t _ever_ be forced on him again.

Dean hesitates. Takes the last bite of his turkey and wipes his hands on his jeans.

Puts his hand over Cas’s.

Cas closes his eyes and looks inward. Looks carefully though the connection. Everything within Dean is in the same place it always was.

But the burns are horrific. The scarring will be bad.

Not as bad as Nick’s, wherein he suspects some of the gaping wounds in the fabric of his soul were pulled taut and strung together with remnants of Lucifer’s strength and rage.

There is nothing of Michael left, here.

Dean did an excellent job of sealing himself off from leaks – from taking parts of the angel into himself, something that Nick obviously didn’t know enough to do – but he paid for it in pain.

Michael knew there wasn’t an ounce of camaraderie in Dean. He was never going to be an ally. His sight and understanding was taken from him the entire time. In exchange for it was only agony. Not even silence and rest.

He would have fought, so Michael punished him for it preemptively.

Cas doesn’t make any sudden moves. When he’s done, he finds himself staring at Dean.

Dean finishes chewing. Only a moment has gone by.

“What?” he takes his hand back.

He wants to beg. He wants Dean to let him heal as much as he can.

It won’t be enough, but it will be something.

He also knows, now, that Dean was screaming and raging and looking for a door to kick down or a window to break the entire time. He wore himself thin.

Cas lowers his hands to his own lap before he grabs Dean and just does it. Just heals him without asking.

“Cas,” he tries to prompt.

Dean is so strong. He always thinks himself weak. So much so that he bought Sam’s throwaway lie to the team.

But the only person he knows just as strong as him is his brother. They are, both of them, the sentinels safeguarding this world. They are powerful and immovable. None of the angels Cas has known in the entirely of his existence have been so pure and capable.

Michael included.

“Hey-hey,” Dean whispers. “Hey, man. Not gonna, like—like _cry_ on me or something?” Dean tries to laugh it off a little but Cas recognizes he’s putting him into real distress and tries to gather himself.

“I might,” he admits. “You are _never_ doing that _ever again_ ,” he insists on this and he wishes for a promise at the same time. (One he knows he won’t get.)

“Cas,” Dean breathes. Looks to the doorway again. Rolls his eyes and just shifts. Turns to gather him in and hug him.

Castiel takes it, gladly.

“Thought you were gonna attack-hug me, earlier. Or maybe punch the shit out of me,” Dean says.

“You can’t do it again,” Cas just pleads.

“Alright,” Dean says into his hair. Touches his head. “Alright. I won’t. You know I didn’t want to in the first place.”

Cas isn’t the one to sit back first. Dean lets go and Cas would rather not, but he does anyway. Eventually.

Dean looks to his nearly empty lunch tray. His kitchen. The hall.

To Cas’s eyes. “Bad, huh?” he guesses.

Cas finds there’s too much... _emotion_ in his throat to speak.

“I donno, man. Top of my lungs. Maybe I was drivin’ him nuts. Maybe he couldn’t take the shouting anymore.”

“Maybe,” Cas allows. It probably wasn’t that, though. No matter how loud Dean was, Michael would have been able to filter him out. Or ignore him completely.

It had to have been something else. And whatever it was, it couldn’t possibly have been good for them – for the humans, survivors, hunters, possibly even the Men of Letters or any other loose group holding the darkness at bay.

“He might have-” Cas hates the theory, but has to give it voice. “He may have used you to find the vampires and other monsters. Maybe even the groups fighting against them.”

Dean rubs his eyes a bit. “Well. Good thing Sam always paid more attention to that than I did. I mean. Sure, I mighta gave him some ideas, but I doubt it was enough to, you know, _betray all of humanity_ or something.”

Cas decides to make him drink the rest of his water. Offers it and watches him closely.

Dean wants to step out there and watch Sam give orders. He wants to see this happen.

But he also isn’t having an easy time sitting upright.

He needs rest and doesn’t want to admit to it.

“We can-”

“ _Cas_ ,” Sam calls down the hall.

Castiel turns and he arrives a moment later.

“Cas,” Sam repeats. “Nick. Where the hell did he go? Jack says you let him leave?!”

“He needed to restart the investigation into his family’s murder. Sam, I wasn’t about to try to _stop him_ from pursuing answers. Not that he would have let me.”

Sam purses his lips and huffs. Taps into his phone and marches over to show Cas the screen.

A murder in Delaware. In the same town Nick is from.

Someone used a hammer to-

“He was going there to _restart the investigation?_ ” Sam presses.

Cas blinks up at him. “He was on the phone with police, the sheriff, the state investigators—” Cas reels. “He was- he said he needed the man caught. He said he couldn’t live like this, knowing the murderer was still out there.”

“So either this is a coincidence, or?”

Nick was involved.

Cas remembers the flash of rage in him, when he looked into Nick’s soul. How tattered and faded it was, and how tenuously strung together. How much understanding and memory he’d lost.

“Or it was him,” Cas agrees.

“Do we have a real reason to believe that?” Sam clearly doesn’t want to.

Cas winces.

Sam nods. “You’re staying here. I’ll take Jack this time.”

“Woah,” Dean finally stops them. “I thought it was fucking crazy in the first place, you saying you saved the guy. You saying he was _here_ , under our roof, and healing up. But, listen, if the dude’s gotta go out there and put his own life at risk, that’s not our problem. Might be he wasn’t the one who did it. Or it might be he was – and he just nailed the guy responsible. Either way, don’t we have bigger fish right now?”

“Not now that Michael’s MIA,” Sam pockets his phone. “Not now that Nick, who is _entirely capable of housing an archangel_ , is on the loose, too. Regardless, I’m not putting you in the path, man. Not happening.”

Sam puts a hand to Castiel’s shoulder.

“I don’t care if you have to lock Dean in the basement, you’re not letting him out. And this time I _am_ calling it babysitting.” He claps Cas’s shoulder on the point.

“I won’t let him out of _my sight_ , but if you encounter anything distressing, you should call us,” Cas requests.

Sam doesn’t look like he buys that as an option, but gives a slight nod.

He moves around to Dean and reaches for him.

Dean lets himself get hauled up by the hand. Sam hugs him tight for a long moment. “I don’t want to see you out there, you get me?” Sam pulls back. “I’m dead serious, Dean.”

“I’m supposed to let you take off with all your little soldiers and-”

“Listen,” Sam stops him. “I’ve got you back. That’s what was running us into the ground. We’ve got this. We’ll work on what happens next. What I need is for you to rest up and let Cas figure out if Mike did anything to you that we can’t fix.” He stops Dean again before he can protest. “Shut the fuck up and let him, dude.”

Dean glares for a second. Then nods.

When Sam lets him go he has to grab for Cas’s shoulder to keep standing up straight.

Sam steps back to look at him for a second.

“Hey,” he looks to the doorway, then back. “I can ask mom to stay?” he offers in a low voice.

Everyone here knows that wouldn’t make Mary very comfortable, no matter how much Dean wants it.

So nobody is surprised that he waves Sam off and tells him to go. Go and kick it in the ass.

«»

It doesn’t take much time for the bunker to empty out. Sam gives orders and most everybody snaps to.

Bobby is the exception. He and Mary wait for Sam and Jack when Sam insists they leave the Impala for Dean.

A small mercy, even if he doesn’t look like he can trust himself to drive it at the moment.

Dean steps away, on his own, to get the other side of the garage door and help Cas pull it down, despite the fact the he could manage on his own and Dean stumbles on the way back over to him.

Cas helps him stand straight and they tackle the stairs again.

“Babysitting,” Dean curses. “Whatever, man.”

Cas cocks his head. “I honestly can’t tell if that means you intend to complicate my job or not.”

“I don’t complicate your life,” Dean says with surety. “Library,” he tries to point them in the other direction, but Cas hauls him towards the dorms again.

“You’re right. You don’t. Certainly not on the rare occasions when you listen.”

“Cas,” he whines a little.

“You’re gonna sleep more.”

“How the fuck am I supposed to sleep? I just got done being locked in silence for months. I can’t keep staring at the back of my eyelids, man.”

Cas pauses them and leans Dean against the wall. “What do you suggest? A movie? Some television?”

“No. I donno.” His eyes dart back in the direction they just came from. He wants to research. He wants to help Sam.

“I could drive you around until you fall as-”

“That really _would_ make it babysitting,” he crosses his arms, sour. “Look, sooner or later you’re gonna have to do the deep dive and pull up whatever Michael did so we can see it.”

“You don’t remember anything. And you’re not ready for me to replay anything your eyes might have seen or your ears might heard, divorced from your consciousness.”

He stands a little taller. Like Cas damn well shouldn’t tell him what he can and can’t handle.

He puts a hand to Dean’s arm. Where there was once a fire-branded imprint.

The recognition is instant. And Dean’s expression changes in a way he didn’t intend.

Fear surfaces.  
Fear of what Michael might have used his body for. What he might be doing to the world, even now.

Fear of the unnatural things that might have been done to his body without his consent.

And Castiel just nods. It’s exactly as he thought.

“Come, my friend,” he says quietly. “Sleep. I’ll watch your dreams just to be sure. And you’ll be fine. You won’t be, if you don’t rest. So. We have to go this route.”

He takes his hand away, and with it, the threat of any angel magic.

Unexpectedly, Dean sways back into his side, pressing close with the expectation that Cas will automatically help him keep walking.

He doesn’t question it or hesitate. He simply lets Castiel help.

Which is really all he wanted.

“Nothing creepy,” Dean says.

“Creepy?”

“Don’t hover over my bed and-”

“I have Netflix on my phone. I’ll just be nearby.” Half-tuned-in to Dean’s frequency, as usual.

Dean’s either too tired to grumble or just not in the mood to complain about how that works. That’s as surprising as anything right now.

Cas sets him back on his bed. “Maybe I should be worrying about you,” Dean says. And Cas doesn’t really get that.

Dean blinks at him and yawns.

Cas takes a long look and considers the damage he saw, earlier.

Anyone else would be isolated and wracked with pain right now, physical and mental. They’d be breaking down like Nick was before he left the bunker.

Dean just seems relived to be home. He just wants to apply himself to the problems and get to work. “Look at me a sec,” he requests.

Cas shrugs because.  
He already was.

“Just. Lemme say.” Dean takes a breath. “I didn’t listen. I didn’t think I had time – had options.”

Castiel nods. “Well. Admittedly it’s not a decision you typically make with my input. Especially not when Sam is at risk.”

Dean is quiet for longer than he expects. “Maybe I should. Maybe I should be, by now.”

Sure. He says that here and now. In the calm; the lull between waves.

“Something’s wrong with you,” Dean says.

Cas is taken aback. “I’m fine.”

“No, look. I’m in bad shape, but you?” Dean laughs a little, almost nervously. “I mean, dude, can you just decide already?”

“Decide?”

“If you’re gonna fucking hit me, then hit me!”

“I’m not g-”

“Well, you’re staring at me like-”

Cas throws up his hands. “You’re alive. That’s all that matters.”

“You’re waiting – I don’t get it! I don’t understand what-”

“I don’t, either, Dean!”

He scoffs. “You think I don’t know how fucking disgusted you are?”

“Dis—I’m not-”

“We fought for fucking _years_ against this shit and I just gave it up for Mike. You’re pissed. You think I gave up. You think you wasted your wings for nothing and shit,” Dean accuses.

“ _Wasted??_ ” Cas barks out in an uncharacteristic laugh that startles Dean.

He has no idea what’s going on here. He doesn’t want to reach into Dean’s brain to take his full meaning from him. He doesn’t want to disturb him that way or make him feel unsafe after what he’s been through, but this is baffling.

He just.

He just sits. Turns and sits next to him on the mattress and runs his hand over his mouth roughly.

That isn’t what’s been running through Castiel’s mind.

All he’s been thinking about while Dean’s been gone is _family_. This family and how he loves it and how Dean tried to teach him, but it would still never be the same if they couldn’t get Dean back.

Even if Nick were emotionally destroyed by his experience – even if Sam and Cas and everyone else couldn’t stop seeing Lucifer every time he walked in the room – by rights, Nick could have a position in this family. A name, a role, and people to rely on.

That’s what this place is about. The bunker, the car, the Winchesters, the missions. All of it is about pulling people up from their greatest despair and showing them that their pain had a purpose. That it served others and that they can have friends and family, now, who honor that sacrifice.

He would never blame the loss of his wings or status or rank or position in the Host on anything that has happened in his time with the Winchesters. They’ve all been Castiel’s decisions and Castiel’s battles to fight and he accepts the consequences of them.

He isn’t pissed about Dean saying yes to Michael.

Was he frightened? More than he’s ever been, yes.

Of all beings in this universe, Cas is one of the few who can best understand Michael’s focus and power. He witnessed it first-hand. He served under Michael. There was a time when he wanted to witness Michael’s ultimate Victory and Glory.

He knows, too, that Michael cannot have given up the ground he’d gained, in making Dean his vessel, without making it to even higher ground. So, somewhere out there, he’s probably managed to make himself more powerful than he was a day ago.

What’s really, well, _fucked up_ is that Cas can’t bring himself to care what the strategic consequences may be.

He doesn’t care.

When he got Sam’s call, he stopped trying to care about Nick or the information Sam had been in pursuit of or Michael... several other arguably important things, too.

He had to have Dean home. Had to get him here and have his family back.

Castiel felt the desperation in his own insistence to Jack about the importance of the structure that’s made him who he is today.

All he wanted was to have Dean back. Have one more chance to learn something and to grow with him and to care for him and to be relied upon. After all he’s done, no amount of service will make up for his mistakes, but Sam and Dean aren’t interested in repayment. They just want this.

This.

So Cas was desperate to just have this back.

 _This_. This _family_.

“I’m not going to hit you. I’m barely managing to keep my hands off of you to. To—to comfort and heal you. All I want is for you to breathe and. Be here. Just be here,” Cas admits, palms up on his knees. “Dean, I don’t know what to do. If I can just make you safe for... _five minutes_. If I can let you stop and heal and then watch you get back on your feet and do exactly whatever else it is that you _want to do_. That’s all—all I want. All I’ll need. As soon as I can have your back again I’ll be fine. As soon as we get back to being a family. Just. Tell me what to do. And I’ll do it. I’ll sit here or in the next room. I’ll heal you or watch you heal. I don’t care.” He shakes his head. “Just don’t-”

“Don’t do that to you again.” Dean studies him for a moment. Closes his eyes and takes a calming breath. “Seems like we rip our own family apart more often than other assholes ever manage to do to us, huh?”

Well. That’s depressingly accurate. “Additionally, if you don’t get better and take some of the command, I’m afraid that Sam will turn into someone he wouldn’t like to be,” Cas points out. “The role he’s filling now is normally occupied by the both of you. And he is a little uncomfortable with the leadership. He’s trying to make up for it by being unshakable. Which generally only serves to make him. Um. Scary.”

“Oh, buddy. You ain’t kiddin’.” Dean knows his brother’s reaction to pressure is usually a persistence in strength levels, even without the basics necessary to support that kind of force. Dean motions between them. “He needs both of us, though.”

“He needs you more.”

“He needs both of us,” Dean insists. “So does Jack. Mom. The whole team needs all of us in action.”

Cas sighs, doubting that.

Dean elbows him. “Anyway, you and me? We’re a package deal. I’m a lot better at what I do when I don’t ignore you and let a fuckin’ archangel use me up and spit me out. I know I won’t do it again because next time you’ll tell me the nuclear option isn’t an option.”

“It’s not,” Cas agrees, nods, his eyes wide and insistent.

Dean smiles a little. Keeps smiling. Seems to finally see what he wants to in Castiel’s expression as they both relax a bit.

“And you’ll listen to me, now?” he leans in a little. “When I tell you to lay the hell down and go to sleep?”

“Laying the fuck down,” Dean salutes him and yawns, turning to push the covers out and climb in.

Cas pulls the sheets up over his shoulder as he settles. “Call for me. When you’re up. If I’m in another room, call for me.”

“You um. You really gonna make sure I don’t see anything while I’m asleep?”

“To the best of my ability.” Dean is facing away, on his side. He groans, leaning on his arm, trying to find the best way to rest and not be in pain.

“I can also put you out. Any time you’d like.”

Dean doesn’t respond, which is really what he expected.

Cas moves to get the lamps and mostly-closes the door, keeping the light from the hall out. He takes Dean’s headphones from his little corner with all his music and sits at the desk with his phone to watch a program on fancy houses.

He feels it, when Dean restlessly gives up on one side and turns to the other.

Turns to watch Cas until he’s suddenly asleep.

«»

It’s harder than you might think, to jump in and redirect a dream. They happen suddenly.

To humans, he knows, it feels as if dreams last hours, days. But they have more of them than they recall in the morning and all of them are detailed, complicated, carrying specific features and underlying meaning and moving so rapidly.

Dean dreams of the moment he looked at his hands, right after Lucifer and before-

Castiel closes his eyes and walks to the dream and resets it. Which is rather like slapping a television set and hoping it comes up with an image instead of fuzz. He’s seen Sam and Dean perform the same action in countless motel rooms but the correlation never really came until now.

He sees that Dean’s moved on to dream about something else. When he opens his eyes, Dean settles to his back and snores, deeply asleep.

Cas puts the headphones on a little more securely.

A few hours later, he sees himself in Dean’s dream and has to make a split-second decision whether or not to ‘hit the set’ and direct him elsewhere. It doesn’t seem to be a bad dream yet, but it is about the job, because he sees himself clearly in the scene. Dean needs rest and distance from that.

In the tiny fraction of a second before Cas goes to reset it, he sees where the dream is taking Dean and—

_Motel room. Middle of the night. Dean is exhausted. Must have been hunting. He’s streaked in dirt. He’s in the bathroom. He strips. He starts the shower. He climbs in. Closes the curtain._

_He forgets something._

_Mindful of the pounding shower, he thrusts a hand out past the curtain and grabs fabric._

_Pulls Cas in by his tan coat._

_Presses his mouth to him._

_Tries to pull him into the shower, fully clothed. Absorbed in the kissing, Cas trips over the edge of the shower and-_

The reset moves Dean on to another dream.

And Castiel opens his eyes. But all he can see is the beads of pelted water rolling down his trench coat. Dean’s hand letting go of his jacket. Skimming to his tie. To tangle his fist in it and drag Cas into the shower with him.

They kiss, they kiss, they kiss.

The dream echoes within Castiel where it was plucked from Dean’s mind. Dean has moved on and Cas has to automatically step back in and redirect a dream about vampires – a sudden nightmare recalling what Sam said about the supervamps, trying to rescue his brother from them and failing—

To a pleasant grey blur, now, shot through with the yellow lines of a highway. The windows are down and Dean’s family is in his car. There is pleasant chatter that doesn’t require his involvement, but everyone is there. More than the car can hold, somehow, but he doesn’t mind.

He is driving. His family is smiling. He could go like this for miles. Through states and states. Forever.

Cas gets to step back from Dean’s thoughts for a moment.

He pauses his show and sets his phone down.

Dean could _taste him_ through the water. It was the flavor of the taps in Kentucky and it was Cas’s _mouth_. Bourbon and coffee and late night/early morning waffles.

It’s a little late to realize that wasn’t a bad dream. It might have even been rude to reset it.

But.

He can’t give it back now.

It would literally just be in his own interest.

To _see_ what happens. To see if Dean wants Cas to press him against the wet wall or if Dean will strip him with his own hands or if Dean would let himself be washed and cared for. Let himself come in Cas’s fist and be wrapped in a warm towel and put to bed and held all night.

Cas tells himself to calm down.

Seriously, this has happened before – he’s had these small hopes, passing fantasies about Dean and Dean has always made it incredibly clear that they aren’t in a place with one another where that might happen.

You know. Except it was Dean having the fantasies this time.

He tries to shrug that off. He tries to tune back in and just be an impartial monitor on the dreams, once more, when he restarts the episode of the show he was watching.

Though. He’s so distracted he has to restart it two more times.

Humans dream of things they don’t intend. It isn’t as of Dean asks to live through Croatoan infestations or spend what seems like days running for his life. It isn’t like he tries real hard to replay the horrific house fire that abruptly ended his childhood. Or the hellhound attack that resulted in his damnation.

It was so brief a dream, like most of the hundreds a human can have while in REM on any given night. The thought may never occur to Dean again, waking or sleeping. And when he wakes, they will be as they were. A family.

Dean will need to lean on him and will need his patience and understanding.

Cas tries to give him that, now, too, and disregard what he saw.

His intervention is only required one more time, that night, when Dean screams in his dreams. Screams in the endless way he did while Michael had a hold on him. Screams as if into the vacuum of space, where sound doesn’t move at all and there is never, ever, _ever_ an answer.

Dean’s pulse ratchets up, almost to waking, because of that split second. Cas is tempted to do more than reset the dream. He wants to touch Dean’s neck and slow his heart rate. Let him know he’s safe.

But that wasn’t a part of the deal.

It has to be good enough for him to wake up in the morning, knowing he’s safe because Cas was there, quietly consuming documentaries.

It can’t go beyond that.

«»

Dean rolled to his side again, in the early hours, and when he wakes, Cas feels him blinking at him.

He pauses his show.

“Coffee?” he offers.

“Need more food,” Dean croaks.

“Well,” Cas puts his phone down. “Any of those things are in the kitchen.” He stands to put the headphones away and sits at the end of the mattress when Dean shifts to sit. “Just tell me when you’re ready.”

“No calls?”

Castiel shakes his head. No Sam, no Mary, no one. They did have a bit of a drive in front of them. “Not that I’d let you take any calls,” he sits back, leaning on his hands.

“I’m an adult. I’ll take a call if I want.”

“Adult,” Cas hmms and nods like he’s humoring him.

“Shaddup,” he kicks Cas lightly through the sheets.

“Sleep well?”

Dean frowns, considering, before he nods. “Better than the ride here. Feel like I might be able to fucking use my own feet.”

“If you want to try, you can meet me down the hall.”

“Mm. Gimme a minute.”

“Of course, Dean.”

Dean taps him with his foot a few more times, like he’s trying to make him wobble.

Cas rolls his head to look at him.

“We got salsa?”

“I don’t—I think so?”

Dean sniffs again. Keeps toeing at him.

“Gotta wash the damn gel out of my hair and whatever. I keep smelling blood under my nails.”

Sam said they kept stopping on the drive so he could wash his hands, yesterday, so that makes sense.

Before there’s any talk about showers, Cas rises to get the flannel he shrugged off and prompts him to stand.

Dean groans just moving and sits on the edge of the mattress. He stands to take the shirt and put it on and starts walking to the door, leaning heavily on anything he can touch.

More as an indulgence for himself – to keep feeling useful – than to express any doubt about Dean’s stability, Cas just steps in and loops an arm around him.

He doesn’t try to worm away to walk on his own. “Fuck, I’m hungry,” he grouses.

“You should be.”

“I’m gonna walk you through making breakfast burritos.”

“I’ve watched you before. I can make them.”

“You sure?”

He stops to draw Dean’s arm around himself and smiles. “I’ll try to live up to your standards.”

It was meant to try to get a grin from him, but Dean only huffs and walks. “The fuck do I feel like this, anyway? Was he running marathons with my goddamn body or something?”

“That’s not likely. I mean. He was probably flying. Human bodies aren’t built to move at the speeds we’re used to.”

“Wait wait-” and he does, physically, have to wait. He stops to lean on a doorway and Cas tries to take more of his weight. “So this is, like—like my _hull integrity_ is compromised because I wasn’t prepared to warp?”

It’s tv show language but Cas understands what he’s getting at. “Roughly, yes.”

“So, like. My bones are probably brittle from it? And my muscles and shit?”

Well. Much more than that. Scarring on his organs and wearing on his spine, abnormalities in his blood. Not to mention the likely brain damage and psychological scarring. Both Winchesters have their own brand of PTSD and that can’t have been helped much.

Cas can replay the screams in his own head. He has a hard time not hearing them.

“Will I heal?”

Cas doesn’t want to give him the straight answer to this. He licks his lips and takes a breath. “Given time, some of it will.”

“Some of it?” Dean repeats. He blinks for a moment. “I remember Raphael’s vessel. Fucking drooling on himself. Could barely blink on his own.”

“And that didn’t happen to you.”

“But I might as well get a wheelchair, now, is what you’re saying?”

From where he’s holding Dean he can try to comfort him without it seeming like a sympathetic hug. Something that would make Dean pull away and maybe turn back to his room to absorb this in horrified silence. “If you’d rather not be healed, that may have to be an option.”

Dean looks at him for a long time. “I-. Cas, I know it’s you. I know it’s _your grace_ and all-”

“But you don’t want the heat right now. The presence. You’re worried you’ll feel it more than before if I use my grace to heal you,” Cas nods. “Dean, I understand. So. Only when you’re ready. And not when you feel like you don’t have a choice. I don’t mind helping you get down the hall. This is what family’s for.”

Dean turns, but it doesn’t hide that his eyes go glassy. He nods and pushes away from the wall to keep walking.

“Don’t like that you always have to be the one sweeping me back into a useable pile.”

“I don’t mind. It feels good to be helpful.”

“To get used all the time?”

“ _To be helpful_ ,” Cas insists. “Don’t minimize it. I get plenty of that from-”

He stops.  
He did get plenty of that from the other angels.

Not that he does, now. Probably never will again.

Breakfast is quiet because Dean keeps worrying and Cas keeps worrying. They’re both concerned about an array of things but Castiel suspects the array begins and ends with the both of them on each side.

Dean stands on his own from the table and comes to drag Castiel’s coat off while he’s working on the eggs. He takes Cas’s tie from him, too, and tosses them on the far counter. When he’s satisfied, he nods. “That was annoying,” he explains.

“Well. Wouldn’t want that.” Cas takes his suit jacket off, too and tosses it on the pile.

Dean casts a critical eye on him. Nods again, and turns back to slowly navigate to the table on his own. Cas keeps an eye out, but he does fine.

The prospect of turning out like Raphael’s vessel has Dean thinking, he can tell. He might consider letting Cas heal him, even if he’s not ready to feel the sinew mend and the small fractures in his bones seal up. Even if he’s not ready to be reminded of how inhuman he felt just a day ago.

As he eats, Cas can’t stop himself from reaching out to pat Dean’s hair down again. The side-part has reappeared some – he really does need to wash the product out of his hair. Dean lets him mess his hair up, without flinching. He does stop chewing for a moment, but he doesn’t internally scream for Cas to get away from him.

That’s a relief.

All of this, every moment of it, is a relief. If they can get back to some semblance of how things were, before, maybe Cas will finally be able to swallow back the grip that’s been around his throat since Dean said yes to Michael.

He recognizes that’s what it is, now. Not being able to properly school his expression. Dean’s mixed reactions to him since he’s been back.

Cas keeps waiting for the terror to rise up.

It’s too simple, that Michael should have left Dean with no message and left him alive. He thinks Dean feels an inner dread along the same lines: that Michael might have considered his “yes” to be open-ended and will find new purpose for his vessel, later, snatching Dean from inside their very home once more.

It makes him want to keep reaching out for him. Connect to him. Feel him actually _here_.

Cas watches him eat and Dean wipes off his hands when he’s done. Nods. “Good shit.”

Cas nods back, glad he liked it.

“If you prop me up in the shower, you mind gettin’ new jeans for me and all?”

He nods. “Whenever you’re ready.”

“Can’t exactly do the dishes on my own, so yeah. We can go now,” Dean shrugs.

Good point. He’ll take care of that, too, while Dean’s occupied. The recent residents have not been especially careful about keeping his kitchen in order, while Dean’s been gone. It probably bugs him. He’ll probably thank Cas for stepping in on that front, as well.

Castiel doesn’t need to be thanked. He wants more to do. He wants to be useful to Dean.

(Wants his wings back now, more than ever, truth be told. Perhaps if he had been stronger when Lucifer dragged Sam and Jack away, they would never have had this mess on their hands.

(If he could but be useful enough to Dean, then Dean will never have to give himself away like that, ever again. Or so he might hope. In another life. One where he’s more capable. Where he’s not this shade of what he once was.)

Dean leans into him, again. Knocks his head into Cas’s shoulder like he did yesterday. He gives it a moment before turning to cock a brow at him.

“You sure I can’t fix this on my own? Maybe knock over a pharmacy for some some z-paks and take a few aspirin?”

What needs to be fixed would require, at minimum, multiple surgeries and intensive therapy. Neither of which Dean would be willing to sit still for, let alone see a doctor in an office setting with their sign-in sheets and insurance cards and blood tests and medical charts.

“We should have thought of that,” Cas pretends to mull it over. “If we just slipped Gabriel a few aspirin, maybe we would have been able to move through dimensions with his grace fully renewed. I bet Jack is just one round of antibiotics away from being able to bend Michael to his will again-”

“Thanks, smartass, I get it,” he sighs. “I could sleep another twenty hours.”

“You can get on your feet and go about your day,” Cas recommends, instead. “You can center yourself and prepare for a few rounds of healing. I know you don’t want to, but you’ll start begging to drive out of town far sooner than you’ll be prepared to accurately control the pedals in your car. And I know you wouldn’t want to risk her just because _you’re stubborn_.”

“Freaked,” Dean corrects quietly. He takes a breath, still leaning his head on Cas and not looking up at him. “Maybe scared, I donno.”

Cas knows that. He was trying to be kind. But being freaked and scared has never stopped Dean before. That’s usually when he grabs his gun and heads into the scene barrel-first.

He reaches down to pull Dean up before he’s ready. He doesn’t have to look Cas in the eye. He doesn’t have to admit all of what he’s really feeling. But he does have to keep living.

They hobble to the showers and choose the second stall because the first is dodgy for hot water and it was worth it to Dean to struggle the extra steps.

Cas accepts his shirts when he strips them. “Maybe we should bring a stool in? A chair?”

Dean shakes his head and leans against the tile wall.

Then looks down. And seems to realize he’s going to have to get out of his pants while standing.

They’ve done more awkward things than this together. Cas doesn’t give him time to think about it, just grabs to draw Dean’s hand to his shoulder and balances him out while he unzips his pants and gets moving on it.

He doesn’t let Cas do more, just pauses to take a breath between legs, and eventually hands over his pants and shorts and sighs. “Alright. Yeah.”

In another of his surprisingly fast moves, he reaches and whips the curtain between them before Cas can even step back.

Here, on the opposite side of the fabric, with the water starting, Cas has a clear recollection of his taste on Dean’s mouth, in the dream.

The sound of the taps and the shower shuddering to life bring him as close to thirst as he’s been in quite some time and he wonders if Dean will take long enough for him to grab a cup of coffee, too.

Castiel pulls himself away from the bathroom.

He putters around for Dean’s clothes and hits the kitchen.

Stays mindful of the time he’s left Dean alone.

And listens closely for any indication of a slip or fall, either of which could result in severely fractured bones at this point, to say nothing of an embarrassed, pained heap of Dean on the wet tile floor, probably unfairly blaming himself for the indignity of it.

Cas hangs his jackets and tie in the bedroom, then comes back and sets his coffee mug on one of the sinks as he waits for Dean to finish up.

Once the water stops, he steps close to the curtain and takes up a towel to pass it in.

“Yo,” Dean says, and peeks out.

“Yo... dude.” Cas smirks, offers the towel over.

Dean snorts a laugh. “I can’t believe you.”

“I’m a practiced and professional nerd,” he smiles.

Dean laughs again, and leans heavy on the tile, trying not to slip, suddenly. “Fuck.”

Cas comes forward a step to catch him if necessary.

“Shit. I’m cool, I’m alright.” Dean reaches for the towel but his hand lands on Cas’s upper arm, first.

It’s fine. It gives him a second to straighten up.

He doesn’t have time to be self-conscious about the curtain and just has to breathe for a moment.

He looks to Cas.  
Looks to where his hand is gripped.

Looks to Cas.

And human dreams, after all, for as brief as they are in reality, feel extended and absorbing and real, even if they’re cut off and don’t come to a conclusion.

Sometimes _especially_ if they’re cut off, Cas realizes, seeing it dawn on him.

Cas tears his eyes away at some point. Looks to the other end of the bathroom and pries Dean’s hand up to help him stand straight again. Offers the towel once more.

Dean takes the towel.  
Takes his other hand, too and pulls.

Cas doesn’t move.

So Dean pulls again.

Dean pulls again and brings Cas through the curtain, into the stall with him, warm-pink and wet.

He licks water from his own lips and Cas takes it for the invitation it is.

His shoes squeak on the tile. His entire front is spotted through with water when he presses Dean to the back of the stall and kisses him.

Dean drops the towel and it falls with a soft noise. Frees up his hands to fist one in Castiel’s shirt and the other in his hair.

Cas steps closer and they both have a heart-stopping moment where Dean’s back slips and Cas’s left foot slips and Cas tries to keep the pressure on himself so Dean isn’t in pain. It breaks the kiss and they stand there, suddenly having to face it.

It’s warm. Muggy.

A drop slides from Dean’s hair down his nose.

“Can’t come in the shower dressed, Cas,” he whispers. “Gotta get naked.”

Naked. Yes.

He’d like to keep Dean naked until everyone comes home. All the hours of all the days until someone else shows up.

Have Dean press his head to his shoulder again. Lean into him and rely on him. Press himself into Cas’s arms to let himself be held naked and vulnerable.

Numbly, Cas just nods.

His shoe squeaks.

“I’m not gonna be able stand up in here,” Dean seems to realize.

“I’ll hold you,” Cas breathes.

Dean doesn’t comment but it seems like that was the right answer. “Yeah?”

Cas nods.

No sudden movements, this time, Dean pulls Castiel’s hand from his hip and folds three fingers into his palm for him. Presses Cas’s two fingers to his own forehead.

“Will I be able to after?”

“I’ll try,” Cas nods.

“Cool. Maybe I’ll be stable enough for you to fuck me, too?”

Cas doesn’t wait for him to actually say it. Holds his body close, focuses on his eyes, and sends grace into him to heal as much damage as possible in one, initial shot. As much grace as Dean can handle, right now, anyway, without it rising in his consciousness, taking on a sound and flavor that might remind of him of what Michael was like.

Dean shudders in his arms after a moment and Cas falls back to let him breathe, feeling the echo of him. His damaged insides soothed just because Cas is here for him to lean on. He is able to make this man’s life better. He savors the knowledge absorbed through the interaction – Dean wants him, feels at home with him. Feels better when he’s around.

Dean groans. “Yeah. Better.”

Besides echoing through the bathroom, the groan also goes straight to Cas’s belly, zinging arousal lower, and he’s the one falling into Dean this time, kissing him. Kissing him. Paying attention when Dean’s hands come up to direct him. Pulling back when he needs to breathe and straightening him up when the wet wall sends him sliding down some.

“Hey,” he interrupts, hands at Castiel’s neck, now. “Hey.”

“ _Dean_. Please don’t _think_.”

“Yeah, I was just gonna let you do that for me. Just gotta say one thing.” He grabs Cas’s shirt. Does with the other hand, too, to move him back an inch. To start getting at his buttons. “Let’s not wait anymore.”

“Okay.”

“How ‘bout I don’t leave you again?” he nods, eyes hooded, whole body a promise.

“ _Yes_.”

His hands slow. And stop. He’s _thinking_.

“Dean-”

“You really want this?” he looks down to assess himself briefly. Looks back to Cas. “What the fuck for?”

Cas experiences an inappropriate whip of anger throughout his entire self. Dean often makes him a little angry, but this time he can take away every ridiculous reason for him to say such stupid fucking things.

Dean tenses at his look but Cas just grabs his arms and pulls them around his shoulders, grabs Dean by the backs of his thighs and forces him up the wall.

“Shit-” Dean’s arms tighten and Cas has carried heavier loads than this with no problem and it’s time Dean stopped forgetting that. He holds Dean up with one arm and frees up the other to drag him down and kiss him.

Distracts him right out of the shower stall, the bathroom, and the hall. Presses him down on the bed and gets in on top of him. Dean gasps for breath but lets Cas keep his mouth while he unbuttons his clothes and pushes them away.

Cas kisses down his neck, back up it, tastes the water in his hair and on the rim of his ear and under his jaw.

“Jump my fucking bones,” he moans, trying to shove Cas’s shirt off. Kick one of his shoes off. “God I sound desperate??” he says after another moment.

Cas laughs into his shoulder and takes a second to toss his shirt.

Dean reaches for his pants as he sits up and, tangled in his sleeve, he lets Dean get away with that for a moment, then snatches both his hands up and throws them to either side. Pins his hands to the pillows.

“Fuck,” Dean’s hips pop up into his once, his wet length, belly, groin, thighs.

“I kept your bed warm for you,” Cas kisses into his mouth. “I kept the light in your window.”

He doesn’t mean literally and Dean doesn’t make fun of him for it.

“ _Give me this. Please._ I want my family,” Cas begs.

Dean’s eyes go blind to his surroundings and he strains up to meet Castiel’s mouth. “’Kay,” he says. “Yeah. ‘Course sweetheart.”

Cas lets him wrestle his hands back and move to shuck his pants open for him. He kicks off his other shoe and settles in against Dean’s hips.

Too tight. Dean gasps and presses him up with one hand. Squishes between to grab them both together and _squeeze_ and pump.

He lets Dean do that, too, until he gets the gist of it. Folds Dean’s knees higher and pins his hands back again.

“Cas,” he whispers.

“Do what you want. I’m doing this, now,” lets go of Dean’s hands, props himself up on one side. Uses his other hand to do what Dean had been doing. Grips them together and rolls his hips.

It feels better in Dean’s hands, but doesn’t everything? He tries to move the way Dean did. Tighten the way he did.

At the same time, Dean touches him everywhere, intensifying things all over him. He skims, first, like he isn’t sure what he wants and then messes Castiel’s hair. Drags him down for another kiss.

Cas doesn’t stay long; he wants to keep looking down at them grinding together; look down at Dean’s hands as he curves his nails across his skin and lays his hands just _there_ , entirely. Just everywhere. Cas wants to slide them wetly and for as long as he can get away with, watching this. When he thumbs over the end of Dean’s cock, Dean grabs for his shoulders and arches up into him. “Holy fuck,” he can barely speak. “C-”

If he could pin Dean to this bed for the next two days. If he could leave the room to take the calls, himself, and spread Dean out to come back to his body each time. Hook Dean’s legs around his hips and sit here and feel his skin and bones for hours. His human self, whole and alive if worn and still a bit brittle.

Slow healing will help that. Pressing his grace to Dean’s soul, unhurried, feeling this against himself.

This source of all security, all surety. Dean’s faith in them as a family is unshakable.

Cas has felt like a shill, spouting those lines and insisting to Jack, Mary, anyone who betrayed their doubts, that they were strong and whole together, even if they were gap-toothed with Dean missing.

It wasn’t a show, though. It was a way of holding on when Dean flew away and left a hollow in him.

With him back – no. With him _here_ , wedged tight into Cas’s space and desperately kissing him. With Dean back, like this, in this particular way, he knows that he did it right. He kept the lamp on. He waited.

This is a reward for that. This is what his loyalty gets him, now. Real honor of self and loyalty in return and infinite care. Touch and love and care. Nothing like what he was forced to become used to in service to the Host.

Dean rocking into him hard and gasping for him. His immeasurably luminous soul beaming right into Cas’s eyes like he might have burned Michael out, himself, and not even known it.

Castiel’s hand is slick and the movement makes their bellies wet. He gives up and lets go and grabs for Dean, slides against him, making the bedframe squeal even and repeated and fast.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Dean cries between kisses. “Fuck, baby, yes. Fuck yes. For me, Cas? For me, please, _fuck_ -”

He can’t lose it completely. Dean’s still in some pain and Cas is still very strong. This requires some restraint and Cas keeps that in mind with a groan. Gets some distance from his mouth and focuses on his eyes.

“Donno if I’ll ever be able to-” Dean pauses and strains for his words back- “see you lookin at me like this again without hearing that. Without gettin so fuckin hard for you-” he gasps. “God _yes_.”

He doesn’t know if he specifically waits for it, but he knows, in the moment before, that he’s going to lose it when Dean grabs his neck, focuses right on him, and adds, “At least every time I come home, huh? To my family.”

Cas crashes into his shoulder, this time. Makes some sort of desperate noise, coming for him. All up against his hot skin and Dean finally letting him stay there. Hold them together, collided and not looking for distance in the wake.

Dean grabs his hips to try for more friction up against him, hitting the edge but not over yet.

Cas gets a handle on himself. Reaches to turn Dean’s head and kiss him. Lets Dean grind on him.

He feels his fingers slow in the wake of such a high climax. But the slower he skims across Dean’s skin, the more he lingers, the faster Dean’s breaths come. Cas is slow and reverent and it makes Dean pant, _hard_.

Cas knows what parts of him are in pain. Where he needs attention and care.

The places on Dean where he’d like to spend the next few days kissing. Blessing. Placing his mouth there and holding hot breath against his skin until his muscles feel relief and his mind is at ease knowing Cas won’t ever be able to leave him, either – not after tasting him.

He does so, now, tasting Dean’s mouth. Easing the back of his neck, down his back, following his spine, where much of the damage is concentrated.

The thought that Dean would say ‘good enough’ at some point, step into his boots, and pick up his blades again is utterly unacceptable at this moment.

Even the idea of Dean bringing himself off without a loving touch – straining too hard against Cas for it? That’s no good.

He reaches down, palms Dean’s ass, brings him in tighter. Slips his hand between them and down. Cups him and slides his fingers lower, soothing the skin behind his balls and back further. Tempting and teasing until he’s bucking against Cas’s belly. Only then does he gather him in one hand again and bring him off, kissing him. Pulling little pecks from Dean with punched-out sounds, near enough to whimpers. Beautiful little noises that Cas aims to earn again, through repeated application.

Dean twitches with small aftershocks, eyes closed and mouth open. Mouth wet. Cas lets go of him only to reach back to his ass and palm him close again. His minute thrusts slow to a roll against Cas’s hips and he almost brains himself pressing forward to be kissed some more.

Cas huffs a laugh, says, “Easy,” against his mouth.

“Nuh-uh,” Dean slurs, chasing him.

A tenseness returns to Dean’s shoulders. A soreness in his legs.

Cas feels through him as it happens and it breaks his heart a little with each mounting pain.

He hushes Dean, tries to get him to lay back.

Dean does, but only if he gets to keep a handful of Cas’s hair. Keep him there.

“Will you let me work?” he asks.

“Lemme pass out first? Seriously. It just. I’m just,” Dean searches for words. “The way it pulls your bones back together and zips your insides back up. It feels so fucked.”

“I know,” Cas tries to soothe him.

“It doesn’t feel human.” Dean stares into his eyes, feeling quiet enough, trusting him enough to be scared in front of him. “I’m worried I’ll never be human again. After that. After letting him.”

Cas palms his side. Shakes his head. “You’re human. I promise. You’ll always be more than anyone else.”

He has to pull Cas down close to him. Not to kiss him but to feel him. Feel that his truth is here between them. That Cas wouldn’t just tell him what he wants to hear.

They don’t bullshit one another.

“You might feel it in your sleep. But I’ll try. You want me to wait until then?”

Dean nods.

“I will. That was a good first shot you let me take at it. In the shower? You might be able to stand on your own the next time you try.”

Dean wavers. Then winks. “Sexual healing?” he grins a little, trying for humor.

Cas shrugs. Skims his fingers down Dean’s hip, back to his ass. The cleft and down. Doesn’t let his eyes wander.

The grin fades but he pulls Castiel closer.

“You’re really going to enjoy yourself with my next one,” Cas smiles.

“Next one?”

“Yes. You get to laugh at me.”

“’Kay. Fire away,” Dean dares him.

Cas sighs. “I’m tempted to keep you here in bed and make love to you until you feel no pain at all.”

“Wow.” Dean nods. “Some unit you must have strapped to you. Nobody says ‘make love to you,’ by the way. They said that in olden days. It sounds creepy, now.”

“They say that about the word ‘moist,’ too,” Cas frowns, “but everyone wants their cake to be ‘moist,’ so I don’t exactly understand how those things can be bad.”

“Listen, unless we’re ‘making love’ to a cake this has gone-”

“A brownie, maybe? I enjoy brownies. A moist brownie with ice cream.”

“You’re gonna talk about dessert in _lewd detail_ and expect to nail me to this bed without snacks?”

“There can be snacks.” He grins. “I enjoy feeding you.”

Dean considers. “Am I eating them _off of you?_ I mean. Not opposed or anything. That just seems where the conversation is going.”

Castiel acts like he’s considering that until Dean laughs.

He pulls Dean to lay on his side, again, like they were, and touches. Draws his leg up over his own and slides and buries his fingers in the cleft of his ass.

Dean tenses and then when Cas doesn’t put pressure there, he focuses, trying to relax. “Everything hurts,” he admits, eyes hooded. “Don’t think that’ll help with that.”

“I don’t think it’ll help with anything. I just want to touch you. I always want to touch you. I’d like you to start trusting it.”

Where his cock rests against Cas’s thigh, he twitches just so and groans.

Dean wedges his head under Cas’s chin and fine tremors run through him as he gets used to the idea. “Kick your fuckin pants off your ankles,” he demands. “You look... weird.”

“I look like I couldn’t help myself around you, which is true.” But he reaches to push and kick them away. He knows it’s for something else – not just aesthetics.

It takes Dean a while to start. To return his soft touches. To handle his cock again and take his own turn touching Cas’s ass. He seems to like his thighs better. Grabs him there with a wide hand. A broad, hard grip.

Castiel’s hand drifts. But he wants to see and hear more of what’s going on inside him. Dean wouldn’t know it was happening but Cas is loath to omit the fact that he’d be looking under Dean’s skin. It feels like lying and Cas wants nothing less than everything, from now on. “Let me see more.”

“You gonna look to see what he was doing while he kept me blind?”

“Not yet. Not until you’re ready. If your brain has any record of it, you might have to relive it.”

“So this is…?”

“Other stuff,” he assures.

Dean thinks about this. “Like looking for stress fractures?”

“Looking _at_ them. I have no doubt they’re there. But I also want to watch you a while.”

“Creeper.”

“I want to watch your soul and make sure it’s unharmed,” he’ll plead if he has to. “I like to be close to it. It’s like... kicking my feet up at home.” He skids his hand down and down Dean’s chest, over and over. “I’ll know how much distress you’re in. You often don’t recognize it. Or you deny it. You just forge ahead. I don’t want you to blindly _deal with it_ , anymore. I want you to allow me to address it. You won’t have to talk about your feelings,” he adds. A tempting bonus. “I can simply adjust. I can be what you need.”

He hides his head under Cas’s chin again. “For fuck's sake,” his skin is heating. Cas can feel it. “Stop saying lovey-dovey shit.”

“I know,” Cas rolls his eyes. “It’s so mortifying for you when I want to tell you I love you. I’m using all my self-restraint, I promise not to embarrass you.”

“THIS is all your self-restraint??” he lies back to whine.

Cas reaches to fit his hand to Dean’s shoulder. Stays there. Just like he did in the hall.

But this time it’s not about angel magic. It’s a stark reminder of the livid grace mark Dean once carried on his arm until it was healed away.

It’s about how Cas has marked him in the past. Used his grace to restore Dean’s body and soul after his time in Hell.

But, really, it’s a little more about how much Cas likes to be marked by Dean, here, in the present. Ruined on the idea of independence or rejoining the Host.

He never feels so whole and powerful as when he’s right here, next to Dean’s soul. His grace bends and bows to it. Dean’s soul _calls to him_.

“You have no idea.” It’s the only warning he’ll be giving Dean. It’s not as if he has ethereally 'shouted it from the rooftops' yet, so, if being this intimate is too much for him, he should understand how far Castiel has already toned it down.

Yes, he’s waited millennia for longer processes. On the grand timeline, it took Dean an extended blink of an eye to get here with him. But time also passes slowly here on Earth. And still fast enough to remind him that, one day, his human family members will pass away, be burned or buried in the ground.

They have only so many years left to create the varied settings of Dean’s Paradise, where he will rest forever with his happiest memories.

Cas wishes for him to be drawn to these moments over and over. He wants to build Dean an eternity that he won’t feel caged inside of. He knows – _knows_ – that his best friend, The Most Righteous of Men, will gain that peace in Heaven. There’s not a doubt about it in his whole being.

Though if he expects that paradise to be attained with Cas just standing by in silence, without support or admiration or anything changing, he can _get a grip_ and think again.

This is the first of many changes. “Sex is just the start of things,” Cas says, softly. “That shouldn’t serve as a warning. It should be exciting. It should sound good to you. And if it feels terrifying, instead, then I need to know why. Because we’re about to go a lot further together.” He draws that hand down Dean’s arm to clutch his fingers. His whole broad front is naked to Cas. The most open – the most _laid bare_ Dean has ever been in front of him. And he knows there isn’t a mistake here. That’s significant. Dean isn’t afraid of sex.

Cas grips his hand.

He’s afraid of _this_.

Having his hand held makes his chest blush red. It flies up his throat, right to the tips of his ears.

“May I?” Cas presses. He won’t be letting go of Dean’s hand. He doesn’t need to place his fingers somewhere to look inside of him.

He is not human and he needs to feel these things. If Dean can’t handle that, better they should know, now.

Better they should _deal with it_ right now.

It won’t just sit there, acknowledged and untouched, just because Dean admits it.

They’ll have to chip away at it. Work on it.

They work on every obstacle in their way. This would be no different.

“You have to tell me what you’re doing,” Dean requests. “I don’t get what you’d be doing.”

He closes his eyes and checks Dean’s head.

“You have damage in your skull, much as in your other bones. But the damage that will take more work is the memory you have of your own shouts echoing back at you in your head with no response, for weeks on end.” He opens his eyes. “Michael did that to you.” He thinks about how to phrase it. “I need to see what kind of damage you can’t even express. The pain you don’t even have words for. If I know what that is, then I can take action.”

“What kind of action? Crack my head open and rearrange me?”

“No. I think...” he considers. “I think what it will mean is that you can’t be left alone with your thoughts. I can see and feel the damage done to your psyche. I’m pretty sure you won’t be burdened with thinking about how that felt, repeatedly, as long as I,” he shrugs, “answer when you call. Ensure that you aren’t left alone for extended periods until your own words are bouncing around in your head like those echoes. It’s,... well. Psychological damage. And we reverse it by attending to you in the opposite way in which Michael neglected you. We work on it, Dean,” he repeats.

He’s quiet. He tries to tug his hand away, but Cas won’t be letting go until he wants or needs to.

It’s simplicity.  
It forces Dean to review what he said and decide if it makes sense.

He’s getting antsy. His eyes slide around and Cas can see him considering pulling up the sheets, or rolling to his side, or sitting up. Some of his options for escaping this conversation are uncomfortable, consider his body aches so badly. _All_ of his options are about covering himself. Not being seen.

So Cas does let go this time.

Pins him to the bed by the shoulders and shifts to kneel between his legs. Pushes his knees up and takes his hands when they move to Cas’s arms as if he isn’t ready.

He doesn’t need to be covered. He needs to face this. Cas won’t be hiding it under sheets or in their clothes or in the kitchen or from their family.

He presses to Dean and settles there and waits for him to restart. Consider it. Tap each finger down on Cas’s forearms and slide away. Lie back completely and think.

“You get all that just from looking at my brain matter or something?”

“It’s not just about your physical structure. Like I said. It’s about what’s going on _with you_. Not just in you. And no one would read that in you like I could. No one else with this insight would come to my conclusions and offer you the right solutions. Because I know you. Because,” he shifts to settle where he is, on his knees. “We belong. You’re mine.”

Dean notices something in that. “Stopped being so humble, huh? Not just _your family_. I’m _yours alone_ , huh? You think you get to keep me? Cocky much?”

He takes a deep breath.  
He’ll show Dean _cocky_.

Castiel does use his hands this time.

One he hovers over Dean’s belly, over his center.

The other he uses to press Dean’s knee to his side. Slide down and grip his thigh and not let go.

Looks in his eyes.

Hovers there. And waits for Dean’s soul to reach right out to him. As it does, always.

It feels amazing. Someone he has come to know so well. Such a known quantity and so comforting. His walls are tall and jagged and Cas has been allowed to pass through them as if he were untouchable.

He could make Dean feel this, but doesn’t want such a distinctly angelic experience to frighten him or cause a reaction based on his most recent trauma.

This is meant to be enjoyed.

So, if he simply turns his hand over, Dean can feel this in reverse.

It is a pleasure Cas finds hard to verbalize but Dean’s eyes turn to the ceiling and he makes a soft gasp like when Cas first kissed the water from his mouth.

 _He_ knows how to find the words. He starts with, “Fuck. Holy fuck.” He blinks and mouths something before he can make the words right. “It’s the places we fit. We _fit_ ,” he sounds as if he’s been knocked flat on his ass by the revelation. “You _know me_. You—”

Dean reaches for him.

“Do you need me to stop?”

“Yes,” he gasps. “God.”

Cas eases the connection away. He’s garnered much insight from it. Enough to consider throughout the day. Not just weaknesses in Dean’s structure and wounded emotions he was never going to admit to. But a frightened instability rattled loose by nearly fucking before saying they loved one another.

Big, tender things that normally silence him. Things that normally make him turn away in favor of self-preservation.

He wanted to kiss more. He didn’t want to admit how much pain he was in. He didn’t want Cas to have to sweep him up again. He wanted time to inspect his dreams before they became a reality. He wanted to run through every worst-case scenario of asking Cas for more than friendship. He wanted to look for reasons not to do this.

He didn’t want to regret doing it. And he didn’t want to do it at all if it put him at risk – at all – of losing Cas as part of his family.

Dean wasn’t ready for this.

Until Cas laid him down naked and couldn’t stop touching him.

It made him believe this could be real. It gave him evidence. It opened the case up right in front of him.

To assure Dean it is, in fact, real now, he drops his hand flat to Dean’s belly and leaves it there. Stares until he’s ready.

“We...” Dean is trying to decide. “We can really do this.” He pauses. Looks to Cas and tightens his knees at his sides. “We can do this?” he seeks to confirm.

“Yes. You tell me everything you need and we work on it. And it works,” Cas nods.

“Just like. Just like going on a milk run. Just like picking off a ghoul. Just like grabbing some omen that doesn’t even make sense and driving three days to find the case and fixing everything that nobody even knew was broken. We just,” he shakes his head. “We just do it.”

“Pretty much,” Cas confirms. Pushes both hands down his thighs and accidentally starts to get hard against him again, feeling him understand. Feeling revelation come upon Dean. Feeling him realize it’s all true.

“Come home and just. And just.” Dean blinks. “Keep living together. Tell you when I can’t stand it anymore and you maybe tell me how to fix it.”

“I share the weight of it with you,” Cas nods.

“We work so fucking well together,” Dean’s eyes wander as he’s still understanding what he felt.

The reflection of what Cas feels. A closeness that doesn’t have to stem from anywhere, but it does. They have bled together and sacrificed of themselves. They can trust one another for many reasons, not just because they have spent time together and stayed close. Not just because Cas can’t fly off anymore. Not just because Cas is stuck in the bunker or the car, but because he would still spend his time here even if his wings worked.

He could see Dean’s impression of Michael. What little he assumed and had experienced gave him a cold image. Like living in a windowless cinderblock room with a packed bookshelf and technical knowledge of everything.

But practical knowledge of nothing.

Sterile and bent on purity of spirit.

In other words, the opposite of _soulful_.

And Cas is in love with Dean’s soul. With his experience of Dean and Dean’s makeup combined.

It is simple for him to choose this. He allowed Dean to see that simplicity and Dean can slowly make sense of it.

He lowers himself. Settles closer. Covers Dean’s nudity with himself. He would like to go further. He would like to stroke himself over Dean and be watched. Be seen. He would like Dean to touch him while he does, vibes and feedback in his brainwaves that he can’t stop. Thinking about coaxing Cas down to his mouth. Thinking about his dark hair mussed from sex and how he can be responsible for that every day from here on out.

He gets to watch as Dean Winchester discovers the path he trod to come home to this family. He gets to watch as Dean Winchester decides to welcome him into his hands where he can feel safe and bed down and put his feet up and watch over him for the rest of his days.

«»

Dean is still in pain.

They will handle it.

It’s not so much a matter of Castiel’s scarred-up grace as it is Dean’s need to feel human while he is healed in an inhuman manner.

Castiel has enough patience for this. So long as Dean has patience with himself.

In the kitchen, at dinner, reluctantly wearing clothes, of all silly things, Dean walks to pass him and stops. Steps back one foot. And puts his hand out.

His body hurts and his hand is looking for help somehow.

Cas takes it between two palms and easily finds that what hurts is Dean’s lower back.

The spine will take some time. He gives Dean a bit. Stops just before it feels “weird,” and then stands to help him the rest of the way to the fridge.

Dean leans and breathes. “Geeze.”

“I can work on it while you sleep,” he offers again.

“You wanna do it while I’m conscious – I want you to do it while I’m conscious. There’s no easy way to do it. I just have to slow the fuck down and take my time. Let you take your time,” he nods. “I get that. I just learned that.”

Cas looks into the fridge. Just stares. Forlorn in a fake way. “Oh. That’s sad.”

“That’s not sad. That’s how it’s gotta be. Don’t mess with me, I just learned that,” he cuffs Cas in the shoulder. “Say I did a good job or something. Say I’m spouting the right lines.”

Cas sighs. “Good job.”

“Thanks, dickface.”

“It just means we can’t have sex with wild abandon until you’re better. It’s just sad,” he pretends to pout.

“I am gonna—” he reaches past Cas into the fridge. “I’m fucking gonna-” he fumbles for an egg and just smushes it dead-center on Castiel’s chest. “Dickface.”

It’s frankly the most hilarious thing Cas has experienced in weeks and he falls into the door laughing. Slaps the floor in another fit when he looks up to see Dean red in the ears again.

“Yeah, well, while you’re down there-”

“Dickface??!” Cas beats him to it. Grins. Crawls on his knees, backing him to the wall. “I can be a dickface,” he is suddenly sure of that much.

“Aw there-there’s egg fucking _everywhere_. You’re getting it everywhere. I’m gonna have salmonella in my shorts,” he bats Cas’s hands away from his fly.

«»

Dean is still in pain. And they haven’t even looked at his memories, yet.

In the small hours of the morning, he wakes up with a start.

His mind remembered something his brain wasn’t set to remember. It flies away as fast as a dream interrupted. But then he’s still awake. And his mind still experienced some kind of pain his brain isn’t recalling.

And it hurts.

Dean will learn many things in their first days. Not all of it will be about the bliss of their twined soul & grace. Some of it will even be remedial, like how much he taught Cas to love family and how much he is unprepared for the real _degree_ to which Cas now loves their family.

And some will be really hard things to learn. Like how his body can panic without his brain understanding why. And he can gasp for Cas in the dark and, in the morning, with the lights all on, no one will laugh at how much he needed to be held. No one will mock him for not being able to calm down. No one will _hurt him_ for being _in pain_.

He will be in pain for a while, but he will get better.

As he has made Castiel better, made him a part of a family that is loving and complex and deadly and fragile, Castiel will make Dean better.

As if – Cas marvels, in the quiet, calming him, kissing him – he wasn’t already perfect while broken.


End file.
